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My heart is racing, my eyes tearing from the sting of the slap. I know this won't be the last hit of the night, no it’s only the beginning.
“I said answer me slut.” He jerks his hand away so I can speak. Deep blue eyes watch me with a hatred I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand. How could someone care so little about another being, especially someone who is your own family?
Not breaking eye contact, I mutter, “Yes, Uncle Stephan, I understand, I will obey.” Because what else could I answer to make this situation any less degrading?
“You are months away from graduating, months away from your eighteenth birthday and being discarded like the useless, penniless burden you are.”
I take a breath to center myself and focus because I know he won’t let me go this easily. There is no way. His pride won't allow it. I am the female show pony who makes him out to be some Patron Saint of Bullshit. This benevolent persona he’s adopted, all for taking in his deceased brother's child, wouldn't dare kick said child to the streets when she turns eighteen.
No, I know better than that. He has a plan, and I already know I won’t like what comes next. He spins back in place to face me from his spot across the room as he regroups his anger, pacing back and forth. “You would love that, wouldn’t you, to be rid of this family? To be rid of your duty to repay me for everything I have done.” It’s like he has a permanent glimpse inside my mind. It's disconcerting and sickening.
Throwing his head back, he laughs maniacally. The sound is so unhinged it makes me that much more anxious. He is losing it.
“Oh no dear, I have finally found your purpose. I have found exactly how you will repay this family. You're to be married by year's end, and I expect it to be someone of use to me, or I will take the liberty to choose for you.”
As soon as the words register, I stand from my seat and plead, dropping to my knees before him.
“What?! Uncle please, no, I am only seventeen. Please don't make me get married, I can't!” Panic consumes me, rendering me unable to breathe. I’m hyperventilating and crying, my eyes blur and I can't breathe.
The room around me shrinks, moving in rapid motions like one of those fun house optical illusions. Only this is no illusion.
This is evil incarnate.
And true evil gives no fucks.
I cling to his leg for dear life, begging to whoever is listening that he for once changes his mind.
I should have seen it coming, should have expected it. Yet again I am back handed, though this time, it’s enough to knock me down to the floor. He doesn't stop there, grabbing me by the hair, and dragging me towards his end of the table, the five-thousand-dollar rug burning my flesh as my body drags along.
I kick and scream while he bends and yanks my head back so I have no choice but to look him in the eye as he screams, “Shut the fuck up. You will do exactly as I say. Your only job is to obey. Not to question, not to think, to obey my every command.”
That's one way to put a pause on my incoming panic attack, that’s for sure. I can't think of my impending nuptials when I am waiting for the next strike to come my way. The third slap hurts the most of all. He has hit the same spot repeatedly. Using my face as target practice for the last four years has improved his aim. Without letting me recover from this one, he throws me to the ground and kicks me right in the stomach.
I bend forward into a fetal position. This is the point where I become numb and just succumb to the beating until he is done. He kicks me two more times, then crouches down and grabs my face with a blinding grip. I see stars and he seals the night the same way he has every single time, taking out a tiny white pill and shoving it down my throat.
Tears burn my cheek, like acid rain or molten lava, scaring my porcelain skin. A crack in the fragile canvas.
Rubbing my chin tenderly, he whispers into my ear. “Cover up that crazy, you little bitch. You’d be as useless as your dead mother, given the chance.” He walks over my limp body on his way out. “Clean up this fucking mess you made.”
I lay there as still as the fucking dead, with a throbbing body and a foggy mind. I can’t even see and thinking is as painful as trying to lift myself off the ground.
A few minutes pass before I hear someone enter the room. I’m still curled up on the ground in pain, crying and bleeding from my mouth, where my tooth caught the inside of my cheek. I hear the telltale sign, a pair of Louboutin’s clicking on the floor toward me.
The golden nail in the ivory coffin.
She approaches and looms over me, staring at my mangled body with disgust. “You never learn, always making your poor, sweet uncle teach you a lesson,” my uncle’s wife sneers as she turns to walk away, but not before she hurls one insult of her own my way. “Try not to get blood on the rug, you pathetic little bitch. It costs more than your dead mommy’s drug habit.”
I wait until the sound of her heels fades away before I let another tear fall. My body is throbbing on my feet as I attempt to stand. I need to get the fuck out of here. I need to be long gone before he gets back.
Practically crawling my way up the stairs to my room, I finish packing what I need to get me back to the dorms. My bag is ready, and I sit on my bed, still reeling with the information I am finally processing.
Walking over to the bathroom to clean myself up a bit before walking back out there, I find a stranger I do not recognize staring back at me. It’s not because she’s covered in a dark purple bruise around her under eye, nor because her body is mangled and crouched forward, her bones unable to straighten.
She is a stranger because of the will to continue glimmering in her silver eyes. After everything she’s gone through, not only tonight but for the last four years, she should be nothing but a pile of lost hopes and dreams spread out all over the floor. Fading into nothingness. However, she is a warrior ready to fight, to live.
Stupid, naïve little bitch.
I close my eyes, releasing the last of the tears left in me. I won’t let him see my cry again.
